


Underground

by karin6824



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Book 3: Mockingjay, F/M, Peeta isn't hijacked
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-18
Updated: 2015-06-18
Packaged: 2018-04-05 01:05:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4159764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karin6824/pseuds/karin6824
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No hijacking. No chocking her to death.<br/>But Peeta doesn't need to wear a 'Mentally disoriented' bracelet on his wrist for her to know that they match.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Underground

**Author's Note:**

> I know that versions where Peeta wasn't hijacked have been written a lot, but the divergence in this part of the story is something I'm always in the mood for. So to me, there can never be enough NotHijacked!Peeta fics.
> 
> Hope you enjoy it!
> 
>  
> 
> I'm sorry for any misspellings or wrong use of grammar, English is not my first language. All mistakes are mine.  
> I don't own the HG or the quotes and variations of them that I used.

 

The light is too bright. Why is the light on? He can hear people talking, but can’t make out what they’re saying. Blurry shapes and shadows move around him. Slowly, the image starts to clear. White robes and light grey ceiling. He’s lying on something soft. Someone is touching his arms and mid section. It makes him uncomfortable. It hurts. He doesn’t want them to. His tongue and lips feel as if they were made of stone, he can’t form the words. A sound escapes him.

“Oh good, he’s awake.”

Did he fall asleep or did they drug him? His body feels too groggy. He thinks drugs. He is in a bed, someone calling his name. He focuses on that.

“Peeta, can you hear me? Peeta?”

His eyes search the person that is talking to him. A brown eyed woman is looking back at him expectantly. She repeats his name. Why is she asking? She’s holding some sort of notebook in one of her hands, a pen in the other. In the left one, he notes. A frown dips between her eyebrows.

He blinks. Apparently that’s enough.

“Hello Peeta, I’m Dr.—” Doctor? He drowns out whatever the woman is saying. Doctor. He tastes the word inside his mind. Why would they send him a doctor? He looks around to the rest of them. Doctor _s_ , he quickly realises. Plural. There are three in total, including the woman that is still talking to him. They all look the same. Pale, tired faces, concentrated eyes. White robes. One of them is standing on the other side of the room, preparing something on a table. The other one is standing beside him, touching him, poking and prodding. Looking for something? Putting things over his wounds and cuts.

“...are in District 13 now. The rescue team...” He turns back to the woman again that hasn’t stopped speaking in the entire time. District 13? He tries to see beyond the doctors that surround him, figure out where he is. It’s a ridiculous attempt really, it’s not like there will be a sign on the wall the reads 'District 13'. But he sees others things. Silver machines, making too many noises, with screens he doesn’t know how to read or interpret. But he knows they show things about him. Behind that, white walls and grey floor. No windows. A door on the other side of the room.

District 13. _Capitol?_ District 13. He lets the idea float around his mind. The memories before he fell asleep─ No. Before they drugged him─ are foggy. He remembers being cold, clatters and sounds, a rotten smell mixed with the scent of his own blood still fresh under his nose. Footsteps and too loud whispers. Smoke. _No_. Gas. His door opening.

He doesn’t smell blood now. In fact, he smells... clean. They cleaned him.

Huh.

The doctor mentioned something else. _The rescue team_. That was his rescue? Rescue. District 13.

“...you’re safe here,” she continues. _Liar_. That’s the one thing he is certain of. Nevermind where _here_ is.

The woman is still speaking while they help him sit up. He’s not sure if she’s talking to him or to the other doctors now. He doesn’t care.

The doctor that was by the table before puts a light right in front of his face, too near, and moves it from one side to the other. It bothers him. He closes his eyes.

He keeps them shut, trying to make something out of the jumble inside his head. Something’s not right, it doesn’t make sense. Why would they drug him if they were rescuing him? Not safe. Not safe.

He feels something softly hitting his knee. His leg jerks. He’s not wearing any pants. He opens his eyes to make sure. He looks down at his body and, indeed, he can see part of his nude thighs, followed by his flesh leg and his prosthetic one. He’s barefoot, too. He wiggles his toes, just because. It makes him smile a little and wiggles them again. It’s not the same as the first time, he doesn’t know why. He frowns. He decides to focus on his clothes again.

Someone put him on a light green sort of dress, the fabric incredibly thin. _A hospital gown_ , he recalls. From what feels like a lifetime ago, in the Capitol, when they replaced his leg. In the Capitol. He freezes.

The doctor at his left grabs his wrist. He can hear him counting under his breath. Tick tock.

The door across room opens.

He pushes them away and looks around him, searching for a weapon, everything out of reach. He grabs the pillow beside him.

“Peeta.”

Not real. Not real. Not real. He recognises the voice. He would recognise that voice anywhere.

He shifts his eyes in that direction. _Katniss_. No. Not real.

She crosses the room, his name a breath of air on her lips, a plea. For what? He doesn’t know. He wants her to get out of here before things go bad. He wants to warn her. He leaps to his feet, but doesn’t move. Instead, he stares at her. Her messy hair, her sunken cloudy eyes and the dark circles beneath them, her skinny arms and frail frame.

“Peeta,” she says in choked relief, a second before she pulls him into her arms and holds him fiercely, his body pressed against hers. It hurts, but he doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t hug her back either, his arms hanging limply at his sides, his right hand still gripping the pillow. This feels too real and it terrifies him that it does. If the Capitol captured her... If they brought her here... It can only mean one thing. And that’s as good as a death sentence.

They lost.

The braid falling down her back catches his attention. He gently grabs it between his fingers and runs his thumb over it. He inspects it, how the colour changes and moves with the light, slowly relearning it, committing it to memory once again. This constant. But something is not quite right. And he can’t seem to figure out what. He wants her to turn around so he can examine it more closely.

He feels Katniss shaking against him and he realises she’s crying. She’s saying things, her wet face buried in his neck, her mouth pressed against its curve. Her words lost to him between her sobs and his skin, but he gets bits and parts that tell him enough. Apologies, empty sweet nothings and his name, over and over again.

“Peeta.” Her head jerks back and she stares at him expectantly. “Say something!” His face is grasped between her hands, her eyes searching his.

He looks back at her. Takes this opportunity to study her face up close. He doesn’t like what he sees. This sunken, tear streaked, pale, grey version of Katniss.

“ _Please_!” She sobs, her voice broken, desperate.

But it looks so much like her all the same. He finally comes up with what is different and rejoices on it. The corners of his lips turn up. Her braid isn’t so soft anymore. He tells her.

She chokes on a laugh. “No, it’s not,” she agrees. Then she responds with her own annoying little detail. “You smell like antiseptic,” she half cries. He nods.

He picks her braid once again and continues analysing it, happy that he caught up on what had changed. “Peeta?” she asks quietly, her turn to examine him apparently. He doesn’t want her to though. He knows what she will find there. He knows he has wounds and cuts and bruises she can see. Too little flesh and too much bone. He shakes his head, his eyes still fixed on her hair. He pulls the string that holds her braid together.

“Okay,” she says softly and wipes the tears off his face he hadn’t notice he had shed. “Okay,” she repeats, this time maybe for herself.

“Is this real?” He whispers, afraid of the answer.

“Yes. It’s real, Peeta.” And then, softly, she risks a kiss on his lips.

When she pulls back he is frowning. “You’d only do that in a dream,” he says, taking a step away from her, while closing his eyes tightly, as if willing himself to wake up. He doesn’t see her face crumble.

She squares her shoulders and turns to address the man and two women that are still in the room with them. “You can go now,” she orders with her most authoritative voice. The doctors who had been furiously scribbling on their boards the entire time stare back at her incredulously.

“There are still several tests the patient—”

“The _patient_  needs to rest,” she snaps. It bothers her that they don’t even call him by his name.

“The procedure doesn’t—”

“I _said_ ,” she interrupts, “You can _go_.” With a tone that leaves no room for discussion she adds, “You will finish tomorrow morning, once he's had time to rest.”

The head doctor sends her a glare she matches and then watches them walk out of the room.

 

When they all have left and closed the door behind them she turns back to Peeta. She gently takes his free hand and guides him back to his hospital bed. For some reason, when she tries to pull away to go sit on the chair beside him, he tugs at her hand and doesn’t stop pulling until he’s content with her climbing up the bed as well and claiming the spot beside him. They manage to sit side by side in the small space, their backs against the wall, the pillow lost between them. When they’re comfortable enough, she turns away a little and over her shoulder she hands him what is left of her braid.

He snatches it right away, happily, afraid that if he isn’t quick enough it will be taken from him, like a child that has been given a cookie under the baker’s wife nose. Gently and with the most careful hands, he begins to unravel it, slowly combing her hair with his fingers, cautious when coming across any knots.

“Katniss?” he whispers, even though there is no one there that could overhear them.

“Hmm?”

He hesitates before asking the question that has been nagging him the entire time. “Are we in District 13?”

“Yes, Peeta, we are.” She doesn’t want to explain why.

He nods to himself and continues running his fingers through her hair. “Katniss?”

“Yes, Peeta?” she murmurs.

He stays quiet and tugs a strand a little, silently calling her again. She gets the message and turns around.

He looks at her wide eyed, scared. “How do I know?” He doesn’t need to complete the sentence for her to understand what he’s talking about.

“I’m real, Peeta,” she insists, “Look.” She takes his hand and places it on her cheek.

He doesn’t move, his eyes scanning her, trying to figure her out. “You are thinner,” he notes. She nods in silent agreement. “You don’t look pretty,” he continues. After a silence, he sheepishly adds, “Sorry.”

She doesn’t know why it embarrasses her, her cheeks turning red. She has never considered herself pretty, but hearing it from Peeta somehow bothers her. She’s taken back to the last time she looked herself in the mirror after a shower, about a week ago. She had thought of a dead squirrel in winter. All bones and empty eyes, a mush of wild unkempt hair on top of her head.

She wants to tell him that he doesn’t look good either, just to shut him up.

“And you’re incredibly rude to tell me that after all I’ve been through.”

She bites her tongue, not realising she had spoken her thoughts out loud. “I’m sorry,” she mumbles. For being rude, for leaving his side, for using him, for ignoring him and being selfish, for always treating him so poorly that when she finally kisses him he has to check if it’s a dream.

But when she looks up he’s smiling at her. He moves the hand still resting on her cheek and with his thumb smooths the frown between her eyebrows.

He envelopes her in his arms.

The reunion she had imagined before coming here, before entering this room and crumbling down and finding Peeta broken and lost, finally taking place. He holds her tightly to his body, his arms engulfing her tiny frame even in his current state. Her hands find his face and pull it down, locking her lips with his.

He kisses her until they are both breathless and have to pull away. He peppers tiny kisses on her face and hair and jaw and anywhere he can find. And a choked laugh escapes him against her neck and he plants a kiss there too and says her name like something he can’t believe. She feels his smile against her skin and the need to bring his lips back to hers urges her, to kiss him until they fall asleep. And that they do.

One of his arms wrapped around her waist, keeping her tethered to him, the other one with her hand holding his, locked together, between their entwined bodies. The fingers of her other hand lightly tracing his skin, rememorising his features, what she had learned with long uninterrupted hours of him painting on the plant book. Things that at the time hadn’t seem important, but now she has the need to engrave them on her memory. The line of his jaw, the exact shape of his cheekbones, the dip of his eyebrows, his long eyelashes that make him tickle when she touches them and the way his nose scrunches when she does, the bow of his upper lip.

And when they finally fall asleep and she jolts awake hours later from a nightmare, lost in the darkness of the room and the beeping of the hospital machines, he is there to comfort her, and with a tentative kiss, so are his lips.

And after, when he wakes up confused, searching for her hand and calling her name, asking her if she’s really there, she tells him, “Real.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Reviews make us grow, so please tell me what you think
> 
> Also, my tumblr is thestuckinbed if you want to go and say hi


End file.
